1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a rotating device for use in video shooting equipment, in particular to a unipod rotating apparatus for use in video shooting equipment.
2. Description of Related Art
When video shooting is performed with photographic equipment, in order to reduce shaking of the photographic equipment in shooting and improve the video shooting quality, usually pods for fixing the photographic equipment are used to assist shooting, and in order to achieve all-direction shooting with the photographic equipment, the used pods are required to have 360° rotation function as well.
Chinese patent document CN101273229A discloses a unipod support with fluid damping particularly for video shooting, and in the unipod support, a base and an attachment for a video shooting device are arranged at corresponding longitudinal opposite ends of a rod, wherein the base serves as a supporting seat for supporting on the ground, and the base also comprises an articulation piece with a cup and ball joint; the rod can be oriented relative to the base by means of the articulation piece; the cup and ball joint is connected to a cup-like member by means of a shank thereof; and the lower end of the rod is fit into the cup member through insertion into a sleeve. That is, in the unipod support, through the action of the articulation piece with the cup and ball joint, the rod can rotate about the basic longitudinal axis of the rod relative to the base, thereby achieving 360° all-direction rotation of the video shooting device. The unipod support described in the above patent document has the following disadvantages: the rotating structure for adjusting the rotating angle of the video shooting device in the patent document is formed by cooperation of a sleeve cup and a sleeve rod inserted therein, and as clearance exists between the sleeve rod and the sleeve cup, and the sleeve cup is arranged close to the base and away from an adapting platform, when the sleeve rod slightly rotates in the sleeve cup, obvious vibration of the video shooting device located at the upper end of the sleeve rod will occur, such that the picture of shot videos is unstable, and the video shooting quality is poor, and thus a corresponding damping device needs to be arranged between the sleeve cup and the sleeve rod to dampen and weaken vibration of a photographic device during rotation; however, as the damping device adopts damping oil for damping, the structurally sealing requirement is high; in addition, after a long time of use, a seal ring is aged and is worn off, and the damping oil inside is gradually used up or leaked such that the damping effect is greatly reduced, and thus unipod disassembly, damping oil addition and unipod reassembly work are needed, which brings great inconvenience to a user.
In order to solve the above problems, Chinese patent document CN202362576U discloses a video camera unipod, which is composed of a video camera fixing screw, a universal joint, a tightness regulating screw, an inner draw bar, an outer tube, a fastening cap and a base, wherein the video camera fixing screw is fixed on a universal joint cap; the inner draw bar is fixed under a universal joint ball; the universal joint ball is sleeved inside the universal joint cap; the tightness regulating screw locking the universal joint ball is provided at a lateral side of the universal joint cap; the base is fixed to the bottom of outer tube; and the inner draw bar and the outer tube are fixed by the fastening cap. In the case of the video camera unipod described in the patent document, a video shooting device is connected to the upper end of the unipod through the video camera fixing screw; when rotation is needed, the tightness regulating screw is rotated, such that the universal joint ball is unlocked, and the universal joint cap is further rotated, and the universal joint cap drives the video shooting device to rotate relative to the inner draw bar and the outer pipe, thereby achieving 360° all-direction rotation of the video shooting device; and when the video shooting device needs to be fixed, the tightness regulating screw can be screwed tightly, so that the universal joint ball is locked, and the universal joint cap and the video shooting device are fixed and cannot rotate under the action of an external force.
The video camera unipod described in the abovementioned patent document has the following shortcomings: when the angle of the photographic device needs to be horizontally adjusted, as the rotating structure of the prior art adopts the cooperation of the universal joint cap and the universal joint ball, when the universal joint cap is manually rotated, it is difficult to ensure that the axis of the universal joint cap would not tilt relative to the axis in the vertical direction of the universal joint ball in the horizontal rotation process, which is therefore unfavorable for obtaining an accurate photographing angle; in addition, as the structure for locking the universal joint cap and the universal joint ball is the regulating screw arranged in a projecting manner, not only is the appearance of the whole unipod affected, but also the projecting screw is likely to hook clothing of a photographer.